Chokugeki! Jigoku ken

I'm currently battling a long standing and gravely serious addiction to 70's B-pictures. Blaxploitation, kung-fu, pinky violence, spaghetti westerns, monster movies, Russ Meyer flicks, Italian crime movies - the effects of such an addiction can be gargantuan. However, the crime of many artifacts from the dead era of true 'trash' cinema is that they simply tend not to quite live up to their own hype. See, all these movies had was poster art, outrageous titles, taglines and perhaps one star attraction (like Sid Haig, Franco Nero or star of The Executioner, Sonny Chiba).

However, there is on occasional a movie that comes you way which meets and exceeds your wildest fantasies - Mario Bava's Rabid Dogs, Larry Cohen's Q The Winged Serpent, Giuliano Montaldo's heist film Grand Slam, Sergio Corbucci's Death Rides a Horse - these are all movies that are actually as good as they sound. The Executioner is one such film - it will surpass your wildest grindhouse dreams.

This movie is so stacked with raw humour, outrageous action scenes and sheer entertainment factor that it almost goes beyond belief. I simply can't overstate the pleasure that awaits you with this one - get some friends together, get some beers out, maybe roll yourselves a 'camberwell carrot' or two, and bask in the absurdity and outlandishness of this - Sonny Chiba's FINEST, most hilarious film.

It'll will restore your faith in exploitation films... and maybe, just maybe it will be the best 90 minutes of your entire life.

This film starts out with an older guy and a young (and very attractive) lady recruiting three karate experts to take on a dope ring. Sonny's character was trained in the ninja arts, but has fallen on hard financial time. One of his cohorts is an ex-cop who is now a hit man and the other is a sleaze ball who Sonny has to break out of prison. After some cheap attempts to develop the plot and Sonny kicking ass, they go after the syndicate head while he's having some kind of party.

It's a little weak on the plot and there's way too much of the sleazy guy trying (in vain) to hook up with women, but it does have some pretty cool karate action. Sonny and the ex-cop banter back and forth, which gets a little annoying after a while. The sleazy guy doesn't really do much, except for shamelessly hitting on women (his character didn't advance the plot a whole lot), and some of the other karate experts were unremarkable.

Recommended only to true blue Chiba fans.

I'm not really in love with karate but I have to say that Sonny Chiba has a certain charm and really can fight (and dance). There is a story but it is not very interesting so it is all about the fighting and its great fun. Straightaway we notice that this is not just long silent fights, they are fast and terribly bloody. There is some humour which is copied later by Jackie Chan, even during that ferocious fighting Teruo Ishii manages to find some car crashes and some sex to keep everything going. Actually the sex scenes are rather good and the fights. Chiba was just 20 when he was found by a talent search from Toei Studios and he made almost 200 films. Not only was he good at karate, getting a black belt, but also did judo and kenpo. Tarantino loved him and of course put him in both of his Kill Bill films.

I recently watched two immortal Sonny Chiba Karate classics from the great Toei Company in one night, one being "The Street Fighter" (1974) and the other this gem named "Chokugeki! Jigoku-ken" aka. "The Executioner" from the same year. I couldn't possibly say which of these two I enjoyed more, both deserve their status as true greats of Japanese 70s exploitation. Whereas Shigheiro Ozawa's "Gekitotsu! Satsujin ken" is a raw and ultra-brutal film in which the almighty Mr. Chiba plays a ruthless killing-machine of an anti-hero, Teruo Ishii's "The Executioner" is also very violent, but a lot more humorous. I was a fan of director Ishii before seeing this film for some of his awesome contributions to the Pinky Violence genre (such as "Female Yakuza Tale", 1973), and this awesome flick even increased my admiration for the man. "The Executioner" is an incredibly entertaining flick that delivers everything an Exploitation lover could possibly desire - from martial arts and brutal, bloody violence, to wonderfully odd, typically Japanese humor, eccentric characters, sleaze and gratuitous female nudity, a funky score and great cinematography - "The Executioner" has it all.

Three men, the skilled ninja Ryuchi Koga (Sonny Chiba), the deadly assassin and former drug detective Takeshi Hayato (Makoto Satô), and the criminal and death-row escapee Ichiro Sakura (Eiji Go) are assigned to crush a drug ring which, due to diplomatic connections, is unaccessible to the law... All three leading men fit their roles very well, Chiba, of course, being the main attraction. The film obviously took a lot of inspiration from Spaghetti Westerns, most obviously from Sergio Leone's 1966 masterpiece "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (the best Western ever made, and probably my personal choice for the best film ever). The 'introduction' of Satô, for example, was almost taken over exactly from Lee Van Cleef's introduction in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" - only that this one features explicit gore and loads of sleaze. The character relations are also somewhat resemblant of those in GBU, although the distinction between 'good' and 'bad' is even more vague. Eiji "Tokyo Drifter" Go is the one responsible for most of the funny bits. Sonny Chiba's martial arts are, as always, absolutely amazing, and they come along with loads of brutality. Chiba plays a more likable character here than in the "Street Fighter" films, but he's kicking ass the violent way all the same. Beautiful Yutaka Nakajima, who also played the female lead in "The Street Fighter", is once again a welcome addition in her role here. To sum up: "The Executioner" is brutal, stylish, action-packed and fun in equal measures, and an absolute must for fans of Japanese Exploitation cinema. Sonny Chiba, we worship thee!

This karate classic is one of a kind. Sonny Chiba is remember for his Street Fighter prowess plays a fighter with ninja skills who is recruited by a ex-cop now hit-man along with a another fighter who is a complete nincompoop and very sexy lady. They go after a drug syndicate who uses a deaf-mute as a pawn to their schemes. The death-scenes are a little more animated than gruesome. The fighting scenes are great as well. I liked the part where Sonny's character steps on the paint and painted the enemies up. More plans do come up, and the fighter wants to get more of his share of the cut. However, he trust in the boss is questionable. The crime syndicate gets more fighters to take on Sonny's character. Somehow, arrogance and egos clashed with some of the fighters which gave Sonny character an edge. This movie was rather corny in some areas, other than that, in was fun to watch in my opinion. A very big keeper. 5 stars!